Kumoko/Volume 2
There's very little time for Kumoko to take a break. Right after dealing with the Anogratch army, she realizes that the air is a bit hot. Upon further investigation, she finds a slope going upwards into the Middle Stratum of Great Elroe Labyrinth. Unfortunately for her, Taratects are weak to fire, and the Middle Stratum is filled with pools of magma. Even the air lowers her HP. Even with the Fire Resistance skill, it still takes multiple levels to remove the damage the air and ground does to her. She also meets an Elroe Gunerush, a kind of sea-horse monster that spits fire. It's impossible for her to fight it, since it is completely immune to fire and swims around in the magma that covers most of the Middle Stratum.Volume 2-1: Clearly, God Hates Spiders After lamenting at the serious disadvantage she has fighting in the Middle Stratum, Kumoko decides to evolve into the Small Poison Taratect. The main advantage is the ability to add her poison damage attribute to all her attacks, instead of just her bite, through the skill Attack.Volume 2-2: Pride and Detection In the next chapter, Kumoko whines about her inability to use magic. She's missing the Magic Power Operation and Magical Power Perception Skills. She already has Magical Power Perception in the form of Detection, though. Unfortunately, Detection is too powerful to use and ends up giving her a massive headache every time she uses it, and she can't use Magic Power Perception on its own since it's tied to Detection. While deliberating about where to use her 200 Skill Points, she comes across the skill called Pride. It has mysterious properties that, upon double appraising certain terms in the skill description, bring up the notification "cannot be appraised." Although she has her suspicions due to it's correlation with the Seven Deadly Sins, she picks it up anyway. She almost feels like she has to take this skill. Upon acquisition, Taboo levels up twice and she acquires Abyss Magic Level 10. After this she starts thinking about her senses and focuses on them. She gains a bunch of Skills in the Enhancement category, such as Vision, Auditory, and Olfactory Enhancement. She also gains Prediction and Parallel Thinking. Continuing along this process, she also works on Arithmetic Processing by multiplying by powers of 2 for a while. Some of these added Skills tend to level up when using Detection, but this gives Kumoko a huge headache. She also realizes that Heresy Resistance increases when using Detection. This is all mostly happening while she waits for her HP Auto-Recovery to finish so she can work on Fire Resistance in the Middle Stratum again. She eventually acquires Fire Resistance Level 1 by slowly taking damage from the Middle Stratum and returning to the Lower Stratum to heal, allowing her to finally explore the Middle Stratum. Earth Dragon Kagna also finds her, so she's forced into the Middle Stratum before she's fully ready. Volume 2-3: Middle Stratum Play-Through, Start! In the Middle Stratum, Kumoko is able to break even on healing with Fire Resistance Level 1 and HP Auto-Recovery Level 5, so she can explore the magma-filled Middle Stratum without dying just by breathing. Anyway, she fights an Elroe Gunerush and levels up, all while lamenting about wanting to use magic. She also fights a couple of Elroe Guneseven, a particularly tasty catfish, and explores some new Skills she earned like Thought Acceleration and Foresight. In addition, Appraisal leveled up and she is able to explore her earned Titles and her opponents' Skills. After exploring her new titles, she goes on a catfish (Guneseven) hunting spree, because they are ridiculously tasty.Volume 2-4: Wyrm? Not Fish The Middle Stratum always seems fraught with danger. The next battle is a Elroe Gunerave not that long after Kumo finishes feasting on Gunesevens. It's a tough fight, causing several of Kumoko's abilities to level. Defeating the Gunerave also gives her enough experience points to unlock her next evolution: Zoa Ele or Poison Taratect.Volume 2-5: Spider vs Fire Wyrm She chooses Zoa Ele, of course, due to its increased requirements and the fact that it does not grow in size like the Poison Taratect evolution. She uses the corpse of the Gunerave to create a safety cocoon for her evolution.Volume 2-6: Zoa Ele Upon evolution, Kumoko checks her status and realizes that all of her abilities went up by a huge amount. Most of them more than double. She also gained a few new assassin-like Skills, to fit the theme of the Zoa Ele: Stealth, Silence, Rot Attack, and Utility Thread. Her body also changed a little bit, such as gaining a pitch-black carapace and scythe-like front claws, indicating that she is no longer of the Taratect species line. After analyzing her stats and appearance, she binges on the Guneseven, which is delicious, apparently. After gathering herself, Kumoko explores more of the Middle Sanctum. She also picks up an extremely powerful skill for all of her skill points: Perseverance. This skill allows her to use MP in place of HP when her HP reaches 1. It also grants the Skills Heresy Nullification and Conviction as well as the title Ruler of Perseverance. Heresy Nullification turns out to be pretty important. Kumoko can now use Detection without feeling like her skull is splitting open. Upon it's use, several passive thinking-related Skills level up. She also gains Divinity Expansion. Turning Detection on and sustaining it's use quickly levels up these Skills due to it's intense usage requirements and the Pride skill; Detection also quickly reaches level 10. Upon reaching level 10, Kumoko sees some kind of static, but it quickly goes away.Volume 2-7: The Administrator's Shadow With Detection now usable, Kumoko begins to explore magic, since Detection has Magic Power Perception bundled into it, still she saves it for later. Instead, she establishes her new skill that evolved from Parallel Thinking: Parallel Minds. She puts her new parallel in charge of body functions while the original handles other processes like System analysis and exploring magic. While continuing to explore, she levels up and checks out the Evil Eye spell list that she got from Perseverance. There are several Evil Eyes, but she ends up picking Cursed Evil Eye. While continuing to explore the Middle Stratum, Appraisal eventually reaches level 10! Much to Kumoko's dismay, nothing happens, but that static from before becomes noticeable. Someone tries to reject the request, but D accepts it, creating the ruler skill Wisdom for Kumoko. This interruption and introduction by administrators gives Kumoko a feeling that there is "something wrong with this world." Category:To Do Category:Story Category:Protagonist Arcs